Gone Cold
Page 25
But now things were different, weren’t they? Hailey was once again in my arms. And my head, if not my life, was full of anticipation and promise. I finally felt as though I had something to offer the beautiful and brilliant Polish lawyer Anastazja Staszak—even as a fugitive living with a fugitive teenage daughter in a ramshackle cottage in one of the poorest countries in Eastern Europe.
* * *
Ana arrived in Moldova twenty-eight hours later.
Following a few days under Ana’s care, Hailey’s physical symptoms started to subside. But if I’d thought we were through the worst of the withdrawal, I was wrong.
Because even then Hailey could hardly sleep. And on the rare occasions she finally dozed off, she woke minutes later in fits and starts. Howling for more gear.
“Glass, flake, some jellies,” she’d cry.
Something, anything to ease the anxiety and irritability and sleeplessness. A number of times, in hysterical rants, she offered sexual favors in return for a hit, and I’d have to step outside and have myself a cry. Only Ana could ever calm her and only at times when she was willing to be calmed.
But things are much better now.
In the meantime I’ve been studying Romanian, the primary language spoken in Moldova. Thus far, Ana’s gotten us by with her Russian. But I suspect that at some point, we may have to move to another part of the country, likely on short notice. And we may well end up in a village with no Russian speakers.
With her flare for languages Ana’s picking things up much more quickly than I am. And more and more frequently, she’s insisting I speak to her exclusively in Romanian. Frustrating as hell at times, but I’m trying.
Meanwhile, Ana’s English over the past couple of years has improved exponentially. Her command of the language is absolutely superb. Yet her Eastern European accent remains fully intact—and as sexy as ever.
“You may compliment my English all you want,” she tells me as I sit down at our cottage’s lone table, “but only if you do so in Romanian.”
She clearly hasn’t gotten any softer in the past two years either.
But it’s one of the many things I love about her.
* * *
Hailey hasn’t been very forthcoming about her experiences over the past twelve years. But I’ve read enough about the psychology of kidnap victims to know not to push her. As difficult as that may be at times.
Clearly she developed a strong emotional bond with Terry over the past decade. Whether it’s Stockholm syndrome or something else entirely, I can’t say. I can say that if it weren’t for Ana, I’d be having a much tougher time dealing with all this.
Ana has also gotten far more information out of Hailey than I ever would have been able to.
“There was no sexual relationship between them,” Ana has assured me. “Of that I am certain she is not lying. As awful as it may be to hear right now, she still thinks of him as her father. And it is going to take time for her to come to accept what truly happened to her.”
“Has she been to school?” I asked.
“She claims to have been home-schooled. To what extent I am not sure, but she is a very smart girl so maybe she did not need such a rigorous program in order to reach the educational level she has reached.”
“And what level is that, do you think?”
Ana shrugged but not diffidently; she was genuinely struggling with the answer.
“It is difficult to separate the emotional from the intellectual, Simon. Emotionally, she is still very much a child. Intellectually, I would say she is approaching adulthood. If she wants to go to university in a few years, she will eventually catch up, I am sure.”
I sighed. “And here I had her matriculating at Edinburgh University in the fall.”
Ana smiled warmly. “Her dreams—and yours for her—will not be out of reach for long, Simon. You just need to give her time. And space. And love. Love, most of all.”
“What happened in Dublin?” I asked. “Did she tell you?”
“At the pub, you mean?” She looked away. “Hailey thought Elijah Welker was one of Jack Noonan’s men. He had been following her since Glasgow. She thought he meant to take the money so that Noonan could kill her father. She thought that was what Noonan had wanted all along.”
I nodded. “Has she mentioned Tasha at all?”
Ana shook her head.
“I don’t know what I’ll tell her about her mother,” I said. “Over the past twelve years I’d convinced myself I was innocent in Tasha’s death. But I wasn’t. I didn’t fully realize it—or maybe admit it to myself is a more accurate phrase—until I was in that warehouse with Terry.”
She placed her hands on top of mine. “You cannot accept the blame, Simon. It will do no one any good. Not you and certainly not Hailey.”
I lowered my eyes to the table. “She talks about him still. Doesn’t she?”
“Terry? Yes. She talks about him more than anything else. For twelve years he lied to her, Simon. He manipulated her, kept her cut off from most of the world. In the beginning I believe he censored everything she read or watched on television. He brainwashed her. I do not think she spent most of the past twelve years in a basement. But in a way, it was like that for her. He kept her in a cage simply by keeping her in his heart, and making her believe that he was the only person alive who loved her.”
“She asks to speak with him?”
“She often demands to speak with him. She has even threatened to kill herself if we do not allow her to contact him.”
I buried my face in my hands.
“But we will watch her, Simon. We will keep her safe, not only from others but from herself.”
I nodded sadly but said nothing.
After a minute, Ana asked, “What happened in that warehouse, Simon? You never told me.”
“It’s not important.”
She leaned forward and placed her hand on the top of my head. “If I ask you something, it means it is very important.”
I allowed a small smile and looked into her deep green eyes like I did the first time I saw her at her law firm in Warsaw. Like I did as we’d sat across from each other drinking coffee on the way to Krakow. Like I did as she’d persuaded me with physical force to eat pierogi for the first time in my life in Poland.
I thought back to that conversation.
“Well?” she said.
* * *
I step out of our cottage on a cold, drizzly morning to find a small crowd gathered in a circle nearby. Most of the crowd are women, many are crying, and one woman’s sobs are louder and more desperate than all the others put together.
Behind me, Ana steps outside, sees the scene, and immediately starts toward the crowd. I follow her. Together we skirt a pair of wild hens then slip through to the center of the circle, where a middle-aged woman kneels, bawling, while a young girl—no more than sixteen or seventeen—tries futilely to comfort her.
In Romanian, Ana asks one of the women in the crowd to explain what’s happening. Once she gets her answer, Ana turns to me and tells me the story, mercifully in English.
“The young girl,” she says, “her name is Katya and she is from our village. She just returned from Ukraine. Months ago, she and her friend Svetlana—the older woman’s daughter—were offered jobs as waitresses at a bar in Odessa.”
I already know where this is going but I tell Ana to continue as I process the information.
“Once they arrived, the girls realized there was no bar, only a brothel. Before they could even think, their passports were taken and they were driven to a cramped and filthy apartment in the city. The man who had offered them the jobs showed up with his friends and they raped both girls and beat them when the girls tried to stop the men from raping them again.”
I look at the older woman who is now clinging to Katya’s knees.
“Within a week,” Ana says, trying to keep the strength in her voice, “the girls were forced to service ten or fifteen men a day. Mostly businessmen and tourists,
but locals too. Over those months one of these businessmen became Katya’s regular client and he fell for her. He purchased her from the pimps and bought her a plane ticket back to Chisinau and she hitched a ride from the capital very early this morning.”
“And Svetlana?” I ask.
“The man told Katya he did not have enough money to pay for both girls, only one. She did not want to leave Svetlana behind, but she had no choice. Svetlana’s mother is so distraught because Katya said that Svetlana had once told her that if they were ever separated she would kill herself. She thinks Svetlana will do it first chance she gets, which will be in a few days when the girls are supposed to service wealthy American tourists on a boat in the Black Sea.”
I take Ana’s hand and guide her to the center of the circle and ask her to translate for me.
“Tell her I’m going to get her daughter back to her,” I say.
Ana stares at me for a moment. A wall of water builds in front of her green eyes. But then she nods and turns to the woman and as she speaks, the large crowd finally quiets some.
When Ana’s finished, the mother looks up at me and rattles off a number of hysterical questions in Romanian.
Ana says, “She asks, How is this possible? When are you going to do this? She is poor; how much money will you need?”
“Tell her I’ll leave in an hour and I’ll be in Odessa by nightfall.”
“And the money?”
“I’ll make sure I’m well compensated by the men who took her daughter.”
Ana translates and the desperate expression on the woman’s face slowly morphs into one of hope. She tries to get to her feet but stumbles and slips in the mud.
Finally, Ana helps her up and the woman brushes herself off as best she can and stands before me, her mud-caked hands clamped together in front of her chest.
Only now do I realize just how small and frail the woman is.
After a moment, she removes from around her neck a stainless-steel chain with a charm the size of an American silver dollar. She opens the charm and hands it to me.
Inside is a picture of her sixteen-year-old daughter, Svetlana.
As I look at the girl in the photo, a lump forms in my throat. A slow burn begins at the base of my neck and quickly travels upward until I am almost overwhelmed by a familiar roaring in my ears.
Ana says, “She needs you to know that Katya told her there are lots of men guarding the girls. Lots of men with lots of guns.”
“Tell her it’s all right,” I say calmly. “Tell her I’m going to get her daughter home to her, whatever it takes.”
Ana translates then turns back to me. “Why, she wants to know.”
“Tell her this is what I do. What I have to do. Tell her I’m a professional.”
Acknowledgments
To Kelley Ragland, Elizabeth Lacks, Andy Martin, Hector DeJean, Paul Hochman, and everyone else at St. Martin’s Press and Minotaur Books, thank you for joining me in bringing Simon Fisk to life.
Thanks, too, to Robin Rue and Beth Miller and the entire team at Writers House for going above and beyond the call of duty.
Thanks also to Adrienne Sparks for assisting me with all things marketing.
To Joel Price, Dotty Morefield, Vincent Antoniello, Jason Quintero, Stuart Goldstein, and David Rosenfelt, thank you for your continued friendship and guidance.
And to my lovely wife, Jill, to whom this book is dedicated, my son, Jack Douglas, and my daughters Maya Kailani and Kyra Skye, thank you for your patience, understanding, and encouragement. As always, I couldn’t have written this work without your cooperation.
Finally, to my readers—old and new—I am so grateful for your support. To those who post comments on my Facebook page, follow me on Twitter, or contact me through my Web site, thank you for keeping me company these past twelve months. I look forward to chatting with you again soon.
About the Author
DOUGLAS CORLEONE is a former New York City defense attorney and winner of the MB/MWA First Crime Novel Competition. He now lives in the Hawaiian Islands with his wife and three children. You can sign up for email updates here.
ALSO BY DOUGLAS CORLEONE
Simon Fisk Novels
Payoff
Good as Gone
Kevin Corvelli Mysteries
Last Lawyer Standing
Night on Fire
One Man’s Paradise
Thank you for buying this
St. Martin’s Press ebook.
To receive special offers, bonus content,
and info on new releases and other great reads,
sign up for our newsletters.
Or visit us online at
us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup
For email updates on the author, click here.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Part I: The Ghosts of Dublin
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Part II: The Barons of Glasgow
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Part III: The Lovers of Liverpool
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Part IV: The Sons of London
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Douglas Corleone
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
GONE COLD. Copyright © 2015 by Douglas Corleone. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
Cover design by Ervin Serrano
Cover photographs: man by Mark Owen / Trevillion Images; street by Vab photography / Getty Images
eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-06578-0 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-7278-3 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466872783
First Edition: August 2015
br />